Everyday, especially in the morning, we can see horse drawn wagons going to and from local fields. Several local farmers still use them for farming
We see mainly modern cars but also a good number of Communist era cars like this one
Another peculiar site for us is tractors parked in a small yard or in the driveway. This is a farming community and we have heard of two reasons for the tractors in the yards in town. 1) Farm land is scarce so the farmers build their houses in town to preserve the farm land 2) Corporations can not own farm land so there are a few small farms owned and run by families but most towns own the farm land surrounding them and hire the towns people to work the land. This is a throwback to Communist times.
Two of the main crops are paprika and sunflowers. We see paprika hanging from porches drying in the fall, Hungary is famous for it, and sunflowers are their primary source of cooking oil
Amazing fields of sunflowers that seem to go on forever
Another cultural experience is the hog slaughter. When the weather gets cold enough early in the morning you may hear the scream of a hog not wanting to be made into meat for the winter. We have seen, and heard, dozens of these family events. The men do most of the work, the women are their to assist and talk, and the children and the family dog run around amongst the party atmosphere. This picture is out our back window of a Gypsy family butchering their hog on the first really cold morning this fall.
As the Fall and early Winter pass by and we hear and see more and more hogs being slaughtered we realize just how many villagers raise pigs in these little wooden pens in their back yard
On the peek of the roof of many of the homes are crosses of varying shapes. These are put there at the completion of the house to protect and bless it. They appear to be more of a good luck charm than a sign of meaningful faith as most Hungarians never enter a church.
Inside the homes are curtains of beautiful lace. Hungarian lace is a very fine and proud tradition as is beautiful needlework on table cloths and table runners.
Some more lace with beautiful needlework, for sale in shops in Budapest
Hungarians have a very long proud history full of much upheaval and turmoil which they celebrate with many amazing statues of strong figures doing incredible feats. The plaques are in Hungarian so unless we have an interpreter with us we just stare at the amazing figures.
This is us at Hősök tere (Hero's Square) where there are 29 lager-than-life statues of Hungarian heros of old. We have to be careful not to look too closely, there are many nudes.
There are many beautiful / fun statues to discover all over Budapest and even in the villages
There are over 1000 castles in Hungary which also speak to the amazing history of this country. Many of the castles are fortresses, like this one in Eger, and others we would call mansions.
This is the Elet Szava Castle which is the mansion style
These final few pictures are of the local cemetery on All Hollows Eve. On All Saints Day, Nov. 1st, there is a national Holiday celebrating a day for all the saints that have died. The night before (All Hollows Eve, Oct 31st) is believed to be the night when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest so they go to the graves of their dearly departed put lots of white flowers and even more candles on the graves. Of the hundreds of graves in the cemetery I only saw two without any candles on them and many had as many as 50 candles burning.
Dan met up with a group of other students from the Bible school and there in the cemetery on that cold dark Fall night and they spent time in prayer for those who religiously go through ceremonies for the dead but personally have no hope for eternity as the majority never darken the door of a church.
Here is a different cemetery during the day, since it is so cold the flowers lasted over a month
